Wednesday, August 28, 2013

UTSC Pulse is a blog by students and for students of UTSC. We're recruiting a new crop of bloggers to write about what's important to them, and to you. Keep an eye on us as the Fall semester begins, and in the meantime have a look through our archives for interesting, funny and insightful writing.

And if you want to be one of those writers, drop us an email at pulse.dsl@gmail.com with some information about yourself, why you want to write, and some writing samples if you have them.

Wednesday, April 10, 2013

I don’t think most people are really that honest
when they’re applying to jobs or being evaluated in some way, because the
thought of baring your soul out to someone and then being rejected is too much
for any of us to bear. I have a friend whose great passion is going into
medicine, and yet her answers to the question of “who do you want to be” from
strangers or those probing little forms that you have to fill out for various
purposes in life, are the most sterile, generic answers you can imagine. Read
them and you’d get the impression she’s just going through the motions, or that
she’s the most cheerful yet shallow person around. Her job and volunteer and
university applications don’t even begin to even approach the true recesses of
her soul. Probably it’s the same for me too, or for all of us. Our impossible
hopes or niggling self-doubts or deepest passions can never be articulated in
500-word blurbs.

Yet this is how we’re judged. This is who we are. We
are not living, breathing human beings with ideas and layers and dreams; we are
our resume. We are our GPA. Matt Smith is a 3.1, and so is obviously inferior
to Sally Lawrence who is a 3.7. “What do you do?” has replaced “Who are you?” Can
our GPA measure our kindness and the quality of our character? Our pride comes
from our list of accomplishments, instead of our quality as a human being. If
you make $100k-plus a year, have a beautiful house and a nice car, you’ve made
it, brother. You are the envy of all of us. You are our envy.

This is our society. The efficiency that we hold
so dear has stripped us of our humanity. Who are you now? You are: coffee house
barista for 1 year. Studying psychology at U of T, GPA 3.5. SIN 513 993 982.
And the arbiters look at your fact sheet and say, Nope, sorry, you’re not who
we’re looking for. We just know that someone else would be better at serving
mushy hamburgers than you. I’m afraid your accomplishments don’t meet our
requirements at this time.

Who are you now? You’re a number in a government
database. You’re your tax deductions for last year. You’re a series of rants on
the blogosphere. Probably this explains our 21st-century mania with
sharing: we share pictures of our meals, our moment-to-moment thoughts, our
music and our clothes. We don’t want to be forgotten. If no one’s thinking
about us, do we even exist? Our surface thoughts and tastes can be shared, but
never our souls.

This mania, to be remembered, to be accomplished,
takes a toll on us. We’re exhausted. We don’t sleep. We slave away the night on
distractions, on work, on the stuff that doesn’t really matter in the end. We
miss something. Maybe we miss honesty. Maybe we miss feeling like a human
being, with ideas and layers and dreams.

Monday, April 8, 2013

So I just finished the last essay of my second year in university and I can't help but think about how fast this second semester was. I swear the beginning of second semester feels like it was yesterday when I was talking about how the beginning of first semester felt like it was yesterday when I was talking about how the beginning of summer felt like it was yesterday and etc. etc, time flies!

Anyway, it's week two of my social media blackout.

Week two ended up being more of a challenge than week one. I had more "free-time" because most of my assignments were done and I definitely was not going to start preparing for exams three weeks in advance. I mean, you'd probably forget everything in three weeks, right?! So because of this newly discovered thing called free-time, I found myself fighting a constant urge to sign in on Twitter or Facebook again to tell the world some of my hilarious jokes.

Side note:Wow, I'm talking like I'm addicted to some sort of drug and fighting the urge to relapse or something. It's getting a little scary.

The good news is that I didn't relapse. I mustered up the little bit of self-control I have left and decided that I don't really need Social Media... it needs me.

I did however discover some more cons to not having a Facebook or Twitter which took a little bit of getting used to.

Having to actually look outside my window to check the weather. Apparently I got so used to people posting status and tweets about the weather, it became my number one source to keep track of it. Without the tweets, I actually had to get up, WALK to my window and look outside to see if it was raining or snowing or whatever craziness mother nature was up to that day.

Side note: I don't trust weather apps either because those are wrong at least six and a half times out of ten

Having to keep your opinions about current events happening around the world to yourself even though they're absolutely hilarious. I guess this can go both ways. You can laugh at your own jokes because you know that you're hysterical PLUS you don't have to deal with people who get offended by your opinion. But, on the other hand, nobody else will be able to appreciate the artistically beautiful comedic relief you bring.

Findingoutexcitingnewsthenextdayinsteadofrightwhenit happens. Because I can't see the trending topics of Twitter or trending articles on Facebook, I have to rely on reading the paper on the bus the next day in order to keep up with the times. For example, Ryan Gosling is taking a break from acting to become a director!! I feel like I'm in the '40s again being so behind on such important news

So to end this experiment, although it might take some getting used to, you really can't compete with more time for yourself. I don't regret leaving the social media realm at all! (For now.)

Also, I heard a lot of people followed my lead of this Social Media blackout and I'd like to hear how it's going for you!

Friday, April 5, 2013

Every
year the various academic departments at UTSC make changes to the programs they govern. That includes deleting unpopular courses,
making changes to the wording of the calendar, changing program requirements
entirely, and, the fun part, adding new courses.

The following are all the new
undergraduate courses being added in the next academic year. Start perusing the
courses you could take (or have to take). Get excited. Oh, and definitely
review the changes in the calendar that affect your program, because they could
be important.

A condensed version of the two half-credit courses
on organic chemistry already offered (CHMB41H and CHMB42H). Much the same
material as those two courses, but, at a faster pace and higher level. Includes an augmented lab portion, incorporating the new instruments in the TRACES
facility. Fair warning: only the best and brightest Chemistry students should
undertake this challenge, seeing as the two original courses are already notoriously
difficult.

A brand-new Creative Writing minor, with five new
courses along with it:

ENGC04H3
Creative Writing: Screenwriting

Write friggin’ screenplays! Your craft will be
honed through in-class discussions, readings, and workshops. Admission by portfolio;
see the Calendar for details.

Pre-Requisite:
ENGB61H3; Recommended Preparation: Students should have developed a small body
of creative works before enrolling in this course; Enrolment Limits: 20; Breadth
Requirement: Arts, Literature & Language

ENGC05H3
Creative Writing: Poetry and New Media

Embark on “a creative investigation into the
intersections between poetry and new media (from wikis to cell phones to social
media)”—again, with discussions, readings, and workshops. Admission by portfolio;
see the Calendar for details.

Pre-Requisite:
ENGB60H3; Recommended Preparation: Students should have developed a small body
of creative works before enrolling in this course; Enrolment Limits: 20; Breadth
Requirement: Arts, Literature & Language

ENGC06H3
Creative Writing: Writing for Comics

Why are you reading this when you should be
writing comics? Admission by portfolio.

Recommended
Preparation: Students should have developed a small body of creative works
before

Practice multi-genre creative writing designed around
a specific theme or topic, with a class that involves readings, exercises,
field trips, projects, etc. Admission by portfolio.

Pre-Requisite:
ENGB60H3 or ENGB61H3; Recommended Preparation: Students should have developed a
small body of creative works before enrolling in this course; Enrolment Limits:
20; Breadth Requirement: Arts, Literature & Language

ENGD22H3
Special Topics in Creative Writing II

The sequel.

Pre-Requisite:
ENGC08H3; Recommended Preparation: Students should have developed a small body
of creative works before enrolling in this course; Enrolment Limits: 20; Breadth
Requirement: Arts, Literature & Language

Other new English courses:

ENGB27H3
& ENGB28H3 Charting Literary History I & II

Consider yourself introduced to the history and
culture behind English literature before 1700, and from 1700 to the modern day
in Part II of the class.

Study the great cultural mosaic of Scarborough
through field trips, interviews, and guest lectures.

Enrolment
Limits: 30; open to first year undergraduate students only; Breadth
Requirement: Social and Behavioural Sciences

GGRC50H3
Geographies of Education

Explore the geography of education; topics include
geographical educational inequalities, class and race, the family and
intergenerational class mobility, and the movement of children to attend school.

Get placed in the field and create editorial
content on various platforms individually and as a team. Taught at Centennial College.
The field placement before the change was optional and non-credit, but now is
required for a journalism degree.

Prerequisite:
Successful completion of semesters 1 and 2 of the college phase of the Joint
Journalism Program; Breadth Requirement: Arts, Literature & Language

Learn to analyze the structure (including
phonetics, phonology, word-formation rules, syntax, and script) of “a featured
language” that’s not English or French: no prior knowledge of this language is
necessary.

Aside from myriad other program changes, the
Department of Management has added a new Specialist BBA program in Management,
and a Health Management stream w/ four new associated courses. There are four
new courses as well for regular Management students. I’m not even going to try
to touch this, because all the shuffling around is very complex. My advice is
that if this is relevant to you, check it out immediately.

Merges and replaces two H courses: POLB50H3
(“Canada’s Political Institutions”) and POLB52H3 (“Canadian Politics:
Connecting Citizens and Governments”). Students will now also participate in a
Model Parliament (at the actual Provincial Legislature!), which wasn’t possible
before with two short courses.

Prerequisite:
PSYB01H3 and PSYB07H3; Enrolment Limits: 35; Restricted to students in the
Specialist/Specialist Co-op programs in Psychology; Students in any Mental
Health Studies program and the Major in Psychology will be admitted if space permits;
Breadth Requirement: Natural Sciences

PSYC51H3
The Cognitive Neuroscience of Vision

As promised, study the neuroscience of vision,
including the visual perception of object features, perception of high-level
categories, visual attention. Also, compare human and monkey visual systems.
Probably no meeting actual monkeys, though, which is lame.

Prerequisite:
PSYB51H3 or PSYB57H3 or PSYB65H3; Exclusion: PSY380H; Enrolment Limits: 75;
Restricted to students in the Specialist/Specialist Co-op, and Major programs in
Psychology, Mental Health Studies and Neuroscience; Students in the Minor in Psychology will be
admitted if space permits; Breadth Requirement: Natural Sciences

PSYC68H3
Diseases of the Brain and Mind

Super-cool advanced course. Learn the methods of
diagnosing and treating neurological diseases from a clinical perspective. Taught
by the faculty of brain sciences at Sunnybrook Research Institute.

A seminar course with room for very few people;
examines gender relations in modern China.

Same as
GASD20H3; Prerequisite: [SOCA01H3, SOCA02H3, SOCB05H3 & one C-level course
in SOC] or

[GASA01H3 &
GASA02H3 & one C-level course from the options in requirement #2 of the Specialist
or Major program in Global Asia Studies]; Exclusion: GASD20H3; Enrolment
Limits: 14

SOCD21H3 Immigrant
Scarborough

Conduct qualitative research on the social,
political, cultural and economic lives of immigrants in Scarborough, and tie
your practical research to theoretical debates about transnationalism and
immigration.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

For this post I'm going to bank on a lot of people having heard this song.

If you hadn't heard it yet well here you are.

Why this song? Well the theme for this week will be first impressions.

What happened was when I heard this song I was in a car functioning on three hours of sleep and sipping on the misery cup. All I heard in between talking to my friend was 'I wear your granddad's clothes, I look incredible'. So I thought, 'This is why I don't listen to the radio anymore.'

Then, while looking for desperate excuses to avoid my thesis, I decided to watch the video for this song. Suddenly, it all changed. This song is hilarious, the subject matter might have deeper meaning if you're willing to look into it and frankly speaking that thrift shop swag is working.

Life lesson, your first impression should not be your last.

This isn't the only instance this year I've been forced to reconsider my past judgements. One of my closest friends is a guy, who in the first 15 mins of meeting, I dismissed as 'mean pushy dude'. We've been good friends for three years now, I tell him this story all the time.

Here's another story: I met a group of people at UTSC. At first they seemed cool but I never hung out with them, just passing waves and such. Eventually, the waves stopped and that dance of awkward eye contact avoidance began. You know... that thing you do when you don't want to say hello because you think the other person won't care enough to acknowledge you so you do like an ostrich and bury your vision in a fictitious cloud of ignorance? Maybe that's just me.

Then I had a terrible day at school and I decided to take a chance on these distant friends (5th circle of friends-twice removed), since all my regulars were too busy to hold me and Dr. Phil me through the day. Ever since that day I've spent every night at school with them doing the most fun, bizarre things and I don't regret a single minute.

Life lesson 2, approach passing judgement with care; you've usually got more to gain than lose.

I can't speak for anyone but myself when I say this but I'm prone to making such errors.

That isn't to say human beings aren't prone to be equally disappointing. I've had people cost other people thousands of dollars in damage due to mismanagement and lose competitions because of misplacing subs etc etc (student group problems). But as the British say, (or at least their war propaganda posters of the 30s), said, 'Keep Calm and Carry On'.

Bearing in mind if you set the bar too high you'll have a bunch of people flailing about then dropping into the ocean of inadequacy.

Monday, April 1, 2013

Purpose: To analyze the change in lifestyle and behaviour of a young-adult male after 1 week of cutting all ties from the world.

Background: So last Monday I made the hardest decision of my life and deactivated both my Facebook and my Twitter accounts. Now if you know me, you know that I was an avid Social Media user. I used social media as a medium to get my opinions/thoughts/random things nobody needed to know into people's news feeds and timelines.

Now you may be thinking why on earth would I do this to myself. (I like to think of it as social media suicide).

Honestly, I have no clue. I may have just needed a refresher and time to myself, who knows? If you have any ideas why I could have done it please let me know! Like really, comment below. I don't even know who's reading this or if this is even on Facebook or Twitter or who "liked" or "favourited" it so please leave a comment below.

Observations:

1) I have more time. I normally would come home from work at around 10:30 pm and spend an hour or two trying to catch up on what I missed on Twitter and Facebook during my five hours at work. It would always be pictures of cats and bad jokes on Twitter and useless information about people on Facebook but for some reason I'd still read it night in and night out. But now I usually come home and head straight to bed or read a chapter of a textbook. (More sleep, more productivity = +2 points)

2) Literally 3-4 people made an effort to contact me. Usually if I'm on Facebook or Twitter people are replying/messaging/commenting on what I have to say throughout the day. But ever since I stopped using them only three or four people contacted me. It's only been a week so take what you may from this observation. (+1 just because talking to people who actually want to talk to me make for better conversations)

3) You have more time to actually workout when you're not Tweeting about it. Who knew?! (+1, self-explanatory)

4) Easier to make conversation. Because you don't have play by play updates about your friends via Twitter you can ask them about their day and actually be surprised about something rather than acting surprised because you already saw tweets about it the previous night. (+1)

5) More difficult to make conversation. You can't be like "Oh, I saw you went horseback riding with your pet monkey yesterday on Twitter, how was it?!" This can make for awkward silences(?) and increased frustration with the terrible social skills of this generation. (-1 for awkwardness, and another -1 for the frustration)

Discussion:
Points so far: +3 in favor of keeping social media deactivated.

Overall, it's given me more time to figure out who I am rather than what I want to be perceived as. There isn't anybody I'm trying to impress online anymore. It's just me being me, to myself.

Conclusion:
Tune in next week for week two of my social media suicide stunt.

I made you guys and gals a bunch of Motivational Wallpapers to help you through these trying (exam)times.Enjoy! (These are all 1920x1200 px resolution, sorry multi-monitor junkies and super-hd screen nerds).